What Next?

Posted on 22 Mar 2022 - By Gradon

                     What a challenging time the church has been through lately. It is so encouraging that the government is now saying that there will be an end to mandates.

It seems to me that now is the time to prepare for our new “normal” after a frustrating time of lockdowns and traffic light restrictions. But, what will normal look like? Some church growth experts have suggested we will need an above ground and a below ground stratergy – to keep momentum as we prepare the church for continuous interuptions as o9ur new normal.

The reason for this email is twofold:

1. To invite you to a Zoom conference if you are a church leader to explore our new future’s new normal.

To meet with two pastors who have made changes that they hope will bear much fruit. Kristen Williams Hope Tauranga and Hamish Thomson Abundant Life Church Wellington will share briefly what changes they have made to prepare their church for the future and then have a time of discussion.

Kristen writes” About five years ago I began to feel unsettled about the way that we were doing things. At that time, our church was meeting in a huge indoor arena, and the set up was over two hours of hard labour for our small crew of willing volunteers. At 10am a good number of people would show up, but most seemed to be watching the ’show’ being presented. What we were doing back then seemed burdensome, complex and not very fruitful. This spurred a desire for something different in our leadership team….. Read more

Hamish writes “For us, COVID has opened opportunities for us to begin to step into what we have felt God talking to us about for some time in terms of focussing on and empowering small groups as centres for the Great Commission to flow from rather than Sunday.”….  Read More

Wednesday, April 6, 10-11 am contact me gradon@northsouth.nz to let me know you are joining me on at the Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4644744844

2. Invite you to consider with your leaders the idea of a church mobilisation journey More info here to refocus your church now that we are thinking towards a new normal after mandates. Click here for an introductory video with two pastors who have been on the mobilisation journey and how it has helped their church.

I have found myself leading a church, Raumati Beach Church ( Vineyard) through a transition time while we look for a new pastor ( which we put on hold while we have the traffic light system). We went straight into two simultaneous services of 25 plus helpers plus folk meetings in homes as the Red light restrictions happened. There was a lot of work setting things up – I now have a lot of sympathy for pastors who have been doing this for over two years now!

One good thing that has come out of this period at Beach Church, is that we have started several new house groups we call Ahi Kā ( Home fires ) a name given to us by our bi-cultural group – used in the sense of keeping the cooking fire going continuously for an extended family and then used later by tribes as a symbol of occupancy of the territory. A new name for a new identity using the three/thirds bible study that has been adapted from the church planting methods from overseas- that is outward-looking, and is a good safe place for non-Christians to come as the questions we ask of the text are the same each week. Our Sunday teaching is the introduction to the text for the coming week. We are currently as a church looking at The ten Commands/ invitations of Christ.

May the Lord bless your church – with an abundance of wisdom and grace for this season and for the season to come.